Two sons and a girl

Medical / Health

“This lady lived with her husband who was sick, her two sons, a daughter-in-law … and a girl.”

Alarm bells started ringing as I read this sentence in the case study, and I felt my emotions begin to rise. Who was this ‘girl’? Why were the sons and the daughter-in-law described with relational words and the ‘the girl’ simply tacked on the end with only her gender noted? Was she a daughter? Was she a ‘slave’, a bonded house help?

I was checking the English of case studies which the Community Health team were sending to their funders, as I am sometimes asked to do, in order to help improve the staff members’ English. This case study involved microfinance to provide the older lady in the house with an income to prevent the family going into debt. However, in this instance I wasn’t concerned about the lady—I was concerned for ‘the girl’. When I checked out the case study, I found it had first been written in Hindi by one of the Community Health staff and then translated into English by another member of staff who had some English.

This day I wanted to do more than just improve their English; I wanted to point out how this choice of language was signifying the lack of value of a girl. I spoke to the original Hindi writer and, sure enough, the Hindi words had been exactly translated into English. It was so ingrained in culture that neither the author nor the translator of the story had picked up its significance. This really disturbed me because, while the team were trying to improve the situation of one female, they had completely missed the issue of the other.
Then I called for the person who had written the Hindi version, to ascertain who this girl was. She was indeed the daughter of the family. Something almost boiled inside me. Why was the ‘daughter-in-law’ described relationally but the family’s own daughter was simply ‘a girl’.

Language is powerful, and here the use of a small word captures the situation of so many ‘girls’ in rural South Asia. They are not counted as part of the family because, as soon as possible, the family will give her in marriage to another family. In a sense she is a bonded house-help, who will cause her family more debt as they send her to another family.
The lady who had attempted the translation caught my train of thought and we had a very interesting discussion on the value of girls. My prayer is that she will continue to stand up for many more ‘girls’ who need to know they can be daughters of the Great Father and the King of Kings.

Most of us slip into the mould of our own culture so easily. People who come from outside our culture help us recognise things about our culture we haven’t seen before. Paul and Peter both speak about the need to shape our lives by the Kingdom of God (Rom 12: 2–3; 1 Pet 1:13–17). We need to take the principles of God’s Kingdom and hold them up as the measuring stick to the way we currently live.

It may be tempting to think our culture is better than someone else’s but, in the end, all cultures are held accountable to God’s Kingdom principles. When we step outside our comfort zone and interact with another culture, we often have the opportunity to see things in that culture that need to be redeemed. But beware: you may also be challenged to critically examine your own!

Amelia has served in South Asia for more than 15 years. She currently works in building research capacity for a variety of healthcare workers.
Names have been changed.

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Patience and professionalism

Medical / Health

We came to this country later in our careers. Over the last five years our focus has been on childhood disability, and now our clinical work, teaching and research and our learning from these areas help provide input into national health policy.

We’re still asking the same questions we were at the outset. Is our work relevant and appropriate to the people we’re serving? Is it building up the existing local services? How do we judge the outcomes and what work is most effective?

As an indication of the value placed on our work, the government has given us several awards this past year. We are now being invited to assist with training at government hospitals and rehab establishments with the blessing of the health minister and other key paediatric health professionals.

How did we get to this point? By growing relationships, building credibility, being consistent in our work and generous with our time. Part of the journey has been accepting payment, which is culturally important as work that is paid is valued.

Our data collection has found that severe neonatal jaundice has a significant impact. By improving this area alone, a particular type of disability in children could be reduced by as much as a third (more than 500 children each year!). I realised that although local people could have collected this data, they do not yet have the training to interpret it. Wisdom is needed to avoid shaming anyone as we present these findings at national forums and to local health professionals. Instead we highlight ways local professionals can reduce disability and improve longer term outcomes for those with a disability. One leading doctor said I presented difficult information, but in a nice way. Another doctor was shocked to learn this information, but it motivated him and others to work within their systems to bring about change.

I was invited to write national guidelines on disability management for people with this condition. Patience has been important. The passage of the document through all stages to approval took more than a year and involved addressing sensitivities about some local treatments. This process has resulted in deeper understandings of the importance of evidence-based medicine and the guidelines are now a Health Ministry document. The head paediatric neurologist endorses all the work I am willing to do and has asked me to assist in training his junior medical staff.

There have been some key issues in bringing about change that will have long-term impact on this country. Fostering key relationships has been crucial. Linking with existing government agencies and other NGOs has allowed many local professionals and key people to be rewarded for our work with them. Patience and respect has helped them to accept change because we have had to challenge their local thinking on therapies that are not evidence based.

We recently spent two weeks at a camp for children with disabilities. The journey took several stages: first, six hours by road to the capital, then an extended 13–hour trip in a loaded minibus over three mountain passes to our final destination. We did clinical consultations with over 100 children, their families and local medical professionals. I was able to reassure an anxious mother that her son’s condition would not deteriorate. She could give up her vigilance and let the boy be as active as she liked.

Bringing real change to this nation is what our Father is about, and we are part of that process. Matthew 5:48 (NEB) says, “There must be no limit to your goodness as your heavenly Father’s goodness knows no bounds”. Openly sharing faith is banned but bringing goodness is not and many conversations are occurring about who we are and why we are here. We like it: it is challenging but it is good.

Greg and Marian are doctors serving in a remote part of Asia.

Names have been changed.

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Do unto others

Medical / Health, Arab World

At the organisation where I volunteer a few days a week doing prenatal care, I meet women who have fled from the horrors of war. Most women at the clinic are victims of the most heinous acts. These women, almost all of them, are pregnant through rape. What can one say to someone who is in a situation like this, violated, pregnant and refugee?

A pregnancy, which for most people is something positive, is for these women a big shame. Some of them cannot even manage to tell us what has happened to them. Some have their story written down on a piece of paper for us to read. When I examine a woman, measuring the size of the uterus and listening to the fetal heartbeat, I wonder—how is she coping? What does she think when she feels the baby kick or when she hears the heartbeat through the doptone (electric fetoscope) when I examine her? I do not know at all what this particular woman has experienced. But the empty mournful gaze I often face on these women tells me that I probably don’t want to know too many details about it either.

Gender-based sexual violence is one of the hardest things I’ve met in this work. It is not only in this country that it happens but everywhere where conflict is ongoing. It is commonly used in war situations. I think of the Yezidi women I met who were captured, used as sex slaves and sent home when they showed signs of pregnancy.

Ever since childhood I have stood up for the unprivileged in society. I had a sense of fairness that sometimes got me into trouble when “solving” problems using my fists! Early in my life I wanted to follow Jesus and work abroad where people did not know about Him. My plan was to work in an orphanage taking care of and loving babies and small children. I wanted to become a nurse and midwife, because surely they would deal with babies! Little did I know back then that a midwife just sees to it that the baby is born safely. But even now I still have the same longing to serve the most vulnerable. So whenever I meet people from other cultures— men and women—I feel this longing to help.

I have been able to use my profession in roles I never could have imagined. I have served in four different Muslim countries since 1991, working with women through antenatal care and family planning clinics. My driving force has been and still is to show the love of Christ to the women I meet.

“How is it possible to survive and even thrive in a Muslim context where women have little or no rights?” is a question I sometimes get. First and foremost I need to say that I have felt respected and valued by the authorities and almost all my colleagues. God put the love for these women in my heart. My motivation was and still is:

‘So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you’. Matthew 7:12a (NIV)

This verse gives me compassion and empathy for those I meet. Yes, I get tired and impatient but as I listen to people’s stories I can’t help but keep going. What I am doing is not so strange; I try to put myself in their place. I know I can’t feel the same but I can show that I care.

This is how we as Christians can have an impact on anyone we meet. It could be as we are serving overseas or even now when we see people from other countries and faiths in our own countries, in a shop, on the bus and as colleagues at work. We need to pray for courage to take the first step.

The author is an Interserve Partner and has served in the Arab world for over 25 years.

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Seeing the invisible

Medical / Health

When I first arrived in the city that I live in, one of the things that struck me was that I did not see many women. As I walked along the main road outside my house, I saw children going to school, some of them carrying their own little plastic chairs for school over their heads; I saw men greeting each other with warm handshakes and long embraces; I saw shopkeepers (men) sitting in their shops waiting for customers; I saw bakers (also men) baking bread in ovens that were set in walls—but hardly any women.

In preparing to come to Central Asia, I had read many books about the country and its culture. Again and again, I read that its women were oppressed, victims of domestic violence and systemic abuse. My first impressions of this country seemed to prove these notions right. Women are hidden behind the walls that surround their homes, and when in public many are “invisible” as they are covered by veils their husbands or fathers force them to wear.

Or are they?

First impressions can be deceiving. As I started to get to know the women here, I began to understand that they are only “invisible” if we do not take the time to see them. I have met women who are juggling full-time jobs and raising a family; women who are furthering their education by studying at university after a full day’s work; still others who are working hard at home raising their children, caring for their families, and making life decisions for their family members such as who their sons can or cannot marry. These women are by no means invisible to their families or communities. It was not until I lived life alongside these women that I was able to see them … their hopes, dreams, joys and sorrows.

Interserve’s approach to ministry through wholistic mission resonates strongly with me. As I learn more about wholistic mission, I am beginning to understand that it’s not just about how we can use our professional skills in ministry, but rather how we can use our whole life for ministry. If that’s the case then, as I grapple with what wholistic mission looks like in my life here, I should not just be asking myself how I can use my professional skills for Kingdom work, but also how I can use my roles as wife, mother and woman to connect with other women.

So I do what only a woman can do in this culture. I spend time in the kitchen with friends who want to learn how to bake cakes and share stories as we eat together. I attend women-only parties to celebrate an engagement or a birth and eat, laugh and dance with them. I sit with a lady who has lost her child and cry with her and pray for God’s comfort to be upon her. I listen to a woman whose husband is sick and has lost his job and pray with her as she worries about her family’s future. I sit around with the girls in my neighbour’s house and in my conversation with them I tell them a gospel story.

In short, I share life with the women around me and, as I do, the veil of invisibility quickly falls away as we connect as people. The women of Central Asia are not invisible but, in a gender-segregated society, it takes a woman to truly see them and then to point them to One who sees them fully.

The author is a psychologist serving long-term in Central Asia.

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God shaped me for this

Medical / Health

The plane took off and, full of nervous energy, trepidation and excitement, I felt like I was flying to Neverland. For the first time in my life I was headed somewhere totally foreign. Four weeks before, I hadn’t even heard of this country, tucked deep in Central Asia. But that’s how God works sometimes – He brings surprises, a turn of events, the intercession of His children, to break our focus on the earthly, refocus on the eternal and point the way to something unknown. When the seatbelt light turned off, it signified a break from the safety of my culture and my lifestyle.

An email telling me of an American couple’s prayer for a music therapist to train their orphanage employees had instigated this departure from the norm. What’s a music therapist, you might be thinking. Exactly. Not many people know it’s a real job. The prayer of this couple was so specific that, when I heard of it, my interest was immediately sparked. I’m a music therapist, I thought. I work with kids with disabilities. I can do that.

But the greater reason for my going was that God had shaped me for this. In Ephesians 2:10 we read: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. It was God who created me and moulded my life to be on such a search – He built in me a deep-seated compassion for those in need, an interest in learning about other cultures, and a desire to use my skills and experience to be a blessing to others and a witness of God’s grace and mercy. I had been inspired and challenged by the stories of many other Christians who had served cross-culturally, and I wanted to see if this could be for me too.

On my connecting flight to Central Asia, I knew I was in foreign territory when, as soon as the “fasten seat belts” sign turned off, the duty free vodka started flowing freely. I felt as if I had gate-crashed a family reunion. We landed in freezing conditions and my senses were assaulted – there was nothing familiar to grab on to. Already, my trust in God was rising exponentially; I prayed and prayed! When I finally passed through Immigration and Tom and Kara*, the American couple I had been expecting, were there waiting, I sighed with relief, ready to follow them, to listen and to learn.

During the next three weeks I participated in Tom and Kara’s everyday life. I encountered many stories of how God was using them to change the orphanage from a place of hopelessness to one of life, with love and mercy penetrating its hard walls. In all they said and did, they beautifully intertwined word and deed as they played their role in God’s great story of salvation. I also met people like Zara*, a local believer who lost her husband in a terrible “hack job” surgical operation. She worked for Tom and Kara and exemplified compassion, gentleness and faith. And while I was able to share some of my knowledge and experience, I’m sure I took away the greater share.

So it was that in that country God fanned a spark of interest into a greater desire to explore cross-cultural service. It was those experiences that would influence my future decisions and where I am today, serving God with my husband and young children in South East Asia. Through all this I can see God’s hand, His call to “Follow Me”.

Amy* is a music therapist serving in South East Asia.

*Names have been changed.

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Grace for the long haul: reflections on 13 years o

Medical / Health

Grace for the long haul: reflections on 13 years of service

“We don’t see you as a foreigner, we see you as one of us.” I was so stunned to hear those words three times, soon after I reached 10 years of service in my adopted country.

The first hint I got that I might one day have some level of approval in my new culture was when I returned after my first Home Assignment. The local people realised then that I was serious about being in their culture and their acceptance of me began to grow. So when I crossed 10 years and people acknowledged me as one of the team, serving together, my heart was so encouraged. Ten years is considered a long time to serve in cross-cultural work these days but it has some excellent rewards. As I look back I can see how the Grand Weaver has been weaving the threads of my life and experience to bring me to where I am today.

I remember being handed an exercise book with four pages of notes, essentially my first job description as school nurse at an international boarding school. Over the four years there, I found tasks I did not enjoy doing and others I had never been trained to do: making budgets in a currency I didn’t really comprehend and working with children who had suffered sexual abuse are good examples. Even as I struggled with some of those challenges, I also saw how my previous training was used by God in that placement. Being the eldest of eight siblings and working in children’s camp ministry was helpful experience. Working in the Emergency Department in a major Melbourne hospital proved very good training for handling the accidents that occur in a school of 300 children.

I guess in some ways I have done it the hard way with four different placements in three different language areas. I remember a particular time when I felt I was a failure. I had persevered with a placement for five months but it became obvious that it was not going to work out. Eventually, when I was removed from the placement, feelings of failure overwhelmed me. I learned two things from that experience: failure (real or perceived) is not final, and you are not a failure if you have been faithful. I took a month out to recover, then moved on to a placement that was a much better fit and led me to the unique niche I now enjoy.

Teaching and mentoring health care workers to be involved in health research came to me after some years in the country. Despite its challenges, it has been a fulfilling role, teaching people theoretical and practical skills, but also having opportunities to teach life values along the way. I have grown into the role, but God has also brought people across my path who opened doors for me to do this job.

There were a lot of things I wanted to achieve in the early days. I remember the list I kept on my wall of what was still to be done. These days I don’t have such a list but I still have dreams of what I’d like to see done. I now focus a bit less on the tasks and more on relationships with people. We have wanted to do a community survey looking at a local health issue. It has been delayed for two years because I wanted it not to be driven by me alone, but this year I have a local colleague who has a passion to see it done and I am trusting others to work with us will be provided.

I now have more white hairs. Sometimes that is helpful in Asia because people give you more respect. However the respect that comes from the wisdom and experience gained can only come from living each of the 365 days of each year. Someone recently asked me how I learnt resilience. My reply was, “You can’t learn it in a week!” On my wall is drawing of a tree with the words of Jeremiah 17:7–8 (NIV):

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green, It has no worries in the year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

That verse became very precious to me and some of my local colleagues when we faced a difficult time in the leadership in an organisation. Together we dug deep into our relationships with God. Resilience comes from plodding on and remaining calm, through the summers and the droughts.

Luke 10:17–20 tells how the 70 disciples came back to Jesus and reported on their mission. Their highlight was the power they had over Satan but that was not Jesus’ agenda. “All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil but in God’s authority over you and presence in you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you – that’s the agenda for rejoicing.” (The Message) These words have been a strong reminder to me as I prepare for my next Home Assignment that God has taught me much and it’s really important to share what He has done in me.

“For God’s love compels us” is the verse on my prayer card. In recent days God has been teaching me new things about his love, especially from the Servant passages of Isaiah. “Take a good look at my servant, I’m backing him to the hilt. He’s the one I chose, and I couldn’t be more pleased with him” (42:1 TM). It’s been good to be reminded that He is pleased with me because He chose me out of His love and not because of the tasks I do. I can relax in that and then serve freely because I am secure as His child. And His love becomes again my motivation to serve. I am still learning; I wonder what more I will have learned in another 13 years’ time. I do know the loving Weaver will be at work making me a more useful servant in His service.

The author is a Partner in South Asia

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Second Chances

Medical / Health

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. … Fear the LORD your God and serve Him.” Deuteronomy 10:17–18, 20.

In a culture where conformity is almost necessary for survival and the competition for resources is instinctive, those who are different, weak or suffer from misfortune are quickly marginalised and cast off without the hope of a second chance, compassion or love. But because of people who fear our God and wish to love as He loves, hope can become a reality and transformation a daily part of life.

Sarah* is mother to a nine-year-old boy with a physical disability. He is unable to walk steadily on his own without a walking frame. But Sarah is reluctant to let him use the walking frame as it would mark him out as a ‘crippled’ person. Sarah has struggled to come to terms with her son’s condition and holds on to the hope that he could be totally cured one day. As a result, Sarah carries him in her arms wherever they go, causing her stress and exhaustion.

Sarah and her son live alone in the city with no connection to family or friends. Her husband is in prison and they are far away from family support. There is neglible government assistance available, and schools can refuse a child enrolment because of their disability. Not only does Sarah need to manage her son’s therapies by herself, she lives in constant fear of debt collectors. In a society where marriage and children are upheld as every woman’s happiness, Sarah is ostracised by those who were once her friends and by strangers who throw insults when they see her son struggling to walk upright. There were many days when Sarah would lock herself and her son at home, avoiding any contact with the outside world and not knowing when or how relief might come.

By chance, Sarah heard about a group of local Christians who had set up a resource centre specifically to support children with disabilities and their parents. This group, in turn, has been supported by the work of Interserve Partners.

Sarah reluctantly attended one event. She was overwhelmed by the support, love and understanding shown to her. For the first time she didn’t feel despised or discriminated against. Gradually Sarah started to smile more, chat with other parents and, most importantly, enjoy her relationship with her son. As Jesus’ love surrounded her, she began to see her son for his strengths rather than his disabilities.

It would be so wonderful for Sarah, and for the people ministering to her, if this was where her story ended. But the road ahead is long and at times very uncertain. Sarah will need to continue to struggle against battles both from without and within. I feel privileged to have had the chance to share, in a very small way, a part of Sarah’s life and the lives of those who continue to minister to her.

*Name has been changed

The author is a psychologist who recently served On Track with Interserve in East Asia

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Love made complete

Medical / Health

“This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11

I met Jesus the other day. He asked me to come with him to see a man who was sick – dying maybe. A man who couldn’t walk anymore, who had pressure sores 12 cm wide across his spine, who people forgot to feed and whom no one wanted.

The room smelt revolting and I hesitated but Jesus walked straight in. He was carrying food for the man and he started by straightening up the room a little and giving the man something to eat. Jesus thought about me too and gave me some surgical gloves and a face mask.

Jesus had invited me because I am an expert with 17 years’ experience working with people with disabilities. But I had never seen anything like this before. Aside from disagreeing with the diagnosis the man had been given, I didn’t know what to do. I was utterly helpless.

But Jesus knew what to do. He began changing the man’s dressings and the man’s sodden bedclothes, something he came every two days to do. He started to clean the man’s wounds, taking away the old skin that had been replaced by new. And in between hisses of pain, the man in the bed asked him questions about the story he had just read in the Bible Jesus had given him. Jesus listened and answered him gently. I couldn’t always follow the answers because my language is sometimes a bit inadequate.

Jesus finished his work with fresh bandages. He asked me if I could do anything and I could see that he loved this man he served. I said I needed time to think and we left.

Of course it wasn’t really Jesus I was with. He was actually a rather short, dumpy 50 year-old with a murky past. I know him and his wife well since they took us, foreigners, under their wing. We laugh a lot together and drink tea. But that day all I could see was Jesus, and that man in the bed could clearly see him too.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:12.

The author is an Interserve Partner in Asia.

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Abis story

Medical / Health

“Jesus, help me! Jesus, help me!” The words came from the small six-year-old girl who had already been sick for four days. What became devastatingly clear was that Abi had dengue haemorrhagic fever, and had now gone into shock. Her parents had been watching her deteriorate but, like so many of their friends and neighbours, they had no familiarity with the early signs of the disease. Knowledge of these symptoms would have told them that this was not the ‘normal fever’ so commonly experienced in this tropical land. Knowing this information can mean the difference between life and death.

Celebrating a rare ‘day off’, my Saturday was interrupted by a desperate call for blood donors for “a six-year-old girl who was dying from dengue”. The phone calls and emails started and donors began giving blood. Others were on standby. Prayer calls went out – to the local community and further afield – as Abi’s condition remained critical.

Who is this little girl? Abi’s family are Christians who moved to our strict Muslim area just two years ago. Her father worked for a car sales company,who tried to get him to do dishonest things. Instead he resigned, and just a month ago he and his wife started a business here in our city. They had limited contact with the broader Christian community in this city governed by sharia law and felt very alone at this terrible time. Far from extended family and familiar home surroundings, they stood watching their little girl slipping away from them.

Friends of the family kicked into action and Abi’s parents were astonished as strangers came and went from the hospital, donating blood to a little girl they hadn’t met. They heard of people they didn’t know who were praying for them and their local friends surrounded them and kept vigil with them, coordinating donors and updating information.

On Sunday evening, the fifth day, Abi went into a coma. Her parents asked for her to be transferred to the large provincial hospital where there were more facilities in the Intensive Care Unit. Such a transfer in itself would take a toll on Abi’s failing body and more prayer calls went out to more people unknown to the family. Pray for a safe transfer … pray Abi can make the trip … pray the doctors at her hospital will agree to transfer her … and so it went.

As an acute care nurse, I knew that Abi’s chance of surviving medically were about zero. From information received it seemed she had septicaemia, was in shock and her vital organs were failing. From my experience her chance of surviving would indeed require a miracle.
Well, the miracle happened! I cried as I translated the message on my phone that came through the next morning. Expecting that I would hear Abi was now with Jesus, instead I was reading: “Praise God last night Abi was successfully transferred to [the main provincial] hospital. The transfer went well and her condition has begun to improve. She has been calling for her mother and requested food. This morning there will be a result from an X-ray of her lungs and it is hoped that today she can leave the ICU area”.

My husband and I, with our director, were privileged to visit Abi a few days later and hear in more detail the horror and relief of this family’s journey over the past week. Abi’s mother wept as she explained the depth of their agony, the two times Abi was misdiagnosed and how it was not until she felt Abi’s icy body one morning that she knew her child was dying and the health providers finally realised what was happening and began resuscitation.

Abi herself was awake when we visited but had not walked for 10 days. She was discharged to bed rest at home a week later and finally after three weeks of illness was able to walk and return to school.

Abi remembers our hospital visit and still talks about it, and the family has just recently returned to their home city due to work circumstances. The evening before they left they came to our house to share a meal and to say goodbye and once again to say “thank you”. This whole experience has been a blessing to Abi and her family through her recovery and the sense of belonging to a large community of faith that exists in this city where our faith is actively opposed and believers are often discriminated against and persecuted.

It has also been a joy and blessing to those of us who walk alongside the local church in its varied forms of expression here. Thank you to those of you who prayed for Abi and her family, and for the calls to prayer that we send out from this land. Please be encouraged that your prayers are so often answered, even though you may not always hear the results.

We especially say “thank you” to the One who lovingly gave healing to Abi and who has given us the honour to serve in this amazing place with all its joys and challenges.

The author is an Interserve Partner in South East Asia

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Postcards from the Himalayas

Medical / Health

Some months back I had the privilege of visiting a leprosy hospital with one of the counsellors, Helen*. I was so moved by meeting these patients that I had to share.

From a Partner in Nepal

Basanta* is a young woman (aged 26) who lives in a very remote part of the hilly western region. She has grossly deformed hands and feet; she had been aware of changes in her limbs for 13 years but did not know where to go for help. She heard on FM radio a description of her disease and a phone number to contact. Not having learned to write, she recorded the number on her phone. When she contacted the number, she learned of a mobile medical camp being held. She was helped to this camp where she was told about leprosy and her need for long-term medication and good care of her limbs to avoid further damage. Leaving her family and all that was familiar, Basanta travelled hours and hours by bus to reach the hospital. That was just a few days ago. Since then, along with medical treatment and care, this beautiful young woman has taken the opportunity to begin to learn to read and write, her pencil held by a stump of a finger. Sometimes a teacher is able to visit the ward. Other times, fellow patients use their spare hours reading to those who cannot read or helping them to learn to write their name and the alphabet. She also is enjoying the fellowship meetings held for patients.

There was another man (aged 53) – I did not catch his name –who also came from a very remote area. He had a below-the-knee amputation due to disease. His three daughters are all married and have left his home; only his wife is waiting for him there. He came seeking help as he realised that although he had only a ‘sore’ on his foot that he continually damaged, it could be leprosy. Even now, in phone calls to his wife explaining that he had an amputation, he did not speak the dreaded word ‘leprosy’ so as to avoid the stigma and exclusion people with this disease still often experience. He smiled gently as he explained that he had some land that he could pay others to work now that he was not able and that he had a hand-turn sewing machine and could earn some income that way. This man’s face beamed as he shared all this with Helen this morning.

Astha* was seated on a wooden stool on wheels from which she was carefully spreading the sheet and folding the quilt as she made her bed. Her leg had been recently amputated below the knee. Wounds and damage, occurred because she had no sensation of pain due to the disease, could not be healed. She was missing her three-year-old daughter, who was being cared for by her sister. How would she cope when she returned to her home in a big town on the plains south of the mountains? It is hot and very wet at this time of monsoon. Her home is a small room and water floods in during storms. Although the family has lived there for a long time, they do not have any paper of ownership. She uses a neighbour’s toilet that is some distance away and the nearest tap is at another neighbour’s. Her husband, also a sufferer of this disease, earns a meagre salary as a rickshaw driver and Astha tends a very small vegetable patch. She related that through all these struggles she has a growing faith in God that gives her great peace. Helen gently placed her hand on the bandaged stump of Astha's leg and prayed for good healing and trust in God to provide for her future.

*Names have been changed

/작성자: